CHAPTER VIII. WESTWARD HO! TO ST. DAVIDS. THE CITY AND ENVIRONS. THESE HIGH wild hills and rough uneven ways, draw out our miles and make them wearisome.' Thus, league after league, the sorry team drags the battered old ramshackle coach up interminable ascents, or plunges in headlong career down rough, breakneck steeps, en route for that Ultima Thule of our wanderings, the ancient city of St. Davids. Sixteen miles and seventeen hills (so the story goes) lie between Haverfordwest and our destination. The route bears in a north-westerly direction, through monotonous country relieved by occasional glimpses of the strange, rugged rocks of Trefgarn, or a peep of more distant Precelly. About half-way out rises the lofty isolated tower of Roch Castle, a border stronghold dominating the march-lands that for centuries formed the frontier of this Little England beyond Wales.' Built by Adam de Rupe in the thirteenth century, the tall, picturesque old tower forms a conspicuous object for miles around, while at its feet a group of whitewashed cottages cluster around the lowly parish church of St. Mary de Rupe. Crossing the bridge that spans the Newgale Brook, we enter the ancient Welsh province of Dewisland. Presently our venerable quadrupeds are crawling at a snail's pace down a slanting hillside not quite so steep as a house-roof, with the village of Lower Solva squeezed into a crevice beneath our very feet. The situation of this pretty hamlet recalls the Devonshire combe CASTLE The rocky, weed-strewn shores shelving up to low, grassy hills overarched by the soft blue sky; a stranded coasting vessel, with weather-stained canvas and rust-eaten anchor, beside a handful of rough fishermen's cottages, present all that an artist could desire to compose a charming picture. From the crest of the hill near Upper Solva a wide view of the sea opens out, with a brace of rocky islets off the coast; while far ahead the high lands of Ramsey Isle, Carn Llidi and Pen Beri, raise their graceful undulations above remote Octopitarum, and the wind-swept sandhills that mark the site of legendary Menapia. Coasting along through a rolling treeless country parallel with the course of the Via Julia (the Roman road from Carmarthen), which accompanies us henceforth to the end of our journey, we mount the gentle ascent that leads to the time-honoured' city,' of which, however, widens out, and here stands an ancient stone cross, which, rising from a flight of time-worn steps, marks the central point of this most diminutive of cities. Casting about for some clue to the whereabouts of St. Davids Cathedral, we soon espy a low, dark object that proves upon closer inspection to be the topmost story of the central tower. With this as guide, we traverse an old paved lane ycleped the Popples, Anglicè Pebbles, and passing beneath the tower gate-sole survivor of the four gate towers of the ancient city-enter the cathedral precincts. This point affords perhaps the most characteristic coup d'ail of the venerable edifice, set amidst that stern and sombre landscape with which its timeworn architecture so completely harmonizes. Viewed from our present vantage-point St. Davids Cathedral appears |